Growing voices of resistance. An indigenous Lumad from the Philippines leads the posting at the commitment tree to mark the closing of the International People’s Conference on Mining 2015. Image by IPCM Secretariat

After three days of extensive discussions, shared stories, and strategic planning, a global unity has been forged by more than 140 representatives of mining-affected communities, peoples organizations and other concerned groups and individuals from over 29 countries and six continents who have come together in the International Peoples Conference on Mining 2015 (IPCM) held from July 30 to August 1, 2015 in Quezon City, Philippines.

In a unity statement released on the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of the Philex mine spill, one of the historically largest mine spill disasters in the world that occurred in the province of Benguet in the Philippines, we the participants of the IPCM expressed our growing collective awareness of the crisis in the global mining industry, and have witnessed its victimization of the people and the environment.

We are conscious of mining projects and their collaborators increasingly aggravating mining liberalization, inequitable tax regimes, and investor-state agreements, seeking massive profits and becoming more reckless in their production processes, neglecting with impunity the safety of their workers, affected communities, and the environment.

This convergence of various experiences of resistance and struggle, gaining lessons from victories as well as defeats, has brought us inspiration and hope, and has given us steadfast resolve to stop the further onslaught of imperialist mining plunder and greed against the people and the environment.

Towards this end, we thus commit ourselves to engage in peoples campaigns and researches on destructive mining vis–vis climate change, human rights violations, ecological and health impacts, national mining policies, corporate and financial aspects of mining activities, and the engagement of emerging economies in international mining.

We seek to coordinate and strengthen legal actions and policy advocacies towards the repeal of mining liberalization laws, and the development and enforcement of positive laws that promote and protect the rights of the people. Towards this end, we support the initiative towards the creation of an international center for legal research on destructive mining.

We aim to strengthen science-based tools and methods that can be adapted to empower local communities to monitor the environmental and health impacts of mining, towards strengthening support networks by scientists to mine-affected communities.

We unite to forge solidarity among various social movements and sectors towards strengthening and expanding our networks, building capacities especially among mining-affected communities, towards the establishment of a global coordinating mechanism that can serve as a point of confluence for various networks and initiatives across the globe.

We hope that in working separately in our own contexts and countries, and together through coordinated international actions and solidarity to heighten our collective resistance for the defense of rights, environment and a common future, will bring forth triumph for people over profit, nature over neoliberal mining policies, and for social justice to prevail over death and destruction.#